JERUSALEM CONFRONTATION: An Israeli woman walks through a group of Palestinian women protesting at Jewish visitors to the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City last October. REUTERS/FINBARR O’REILLY After 900 years, Jews are chipping away at Muslims’ exclusive control of a Jerusalem site considered holy by both religions Holy rights BY LUKE BAKER SPECIAL REPORT 1 JERUSALEM TERRITORIAL DISPUTE SELFIE STICKS: Right-wing Jewish activists during a May visit to the compound. REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD JERUSALEM, JUNE 4, 2015 sun-creamed tourists. But he pays close at- Hamad and the other 70 or so guards em- tention to the groups of devout Jews and ployed by the Waqf, the Islamic trust that very morning at 7.30, Murad Hamad Israeli nationalists who try most days to oversees the mosque, see Jews praying there sets up a flimsy plastic chair in the enter the site and pray. as a serious insult. Eshade of the Moroccans’ Gate en- Those groups are at the centre of a creep- The risk of confrontation remained trance to Al-Aqsa Mosque compound ing shift in Jerusalem: After 900 years, Jews small as long as the groups pushing for in Jerusalem and waits for the tourists to are chipping away at Muslims’ exclusive the right to pray remained at the fringes of arrive. control of the site, the third holiest in Islam. Judaism. A decade or so ago, a handful of Hamad’s job is to help keep the peace The shift, which has provoked violence in Jewish faithful would enter the compound at one of the world’s holiest places, a site the past, threatens to open a dangerous new each day. Attempts at prayer were rare. The sacred to both Muslims, who call the com- front in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, add- Chief Rabbinate of Israel declared in 2007 pound the Noble Sanctuary, and to Jews, ing religious enmity to a political struggle that Jews should not visit the site because it who refer to it as the Temple Mount be- in the very heart of the disputed city. was too holy. cause of the building that once stood there. Al-Aqsa has banned non-Muslim prayer But in recent years the radical fringe has The guard is not much concerned with the since 1187. Like Muslims across the region, become increasingly mainstream, drawing SPECIAL REPORT 2 JERUSALEM TERRITORIAL DISPUTE Disputed land The history of the ground where the Dome of the Rock stands is one of repeated conquest and destruction. The area was first settled by the Canaanites some 4,000 years ago. Jews believe that a temple was built during the reign of King Solomon around 1000 BC, and then destroyed by the Assyrian King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. Construction of a second Jewish temple began in 516 BC and that building stood – with occasional renovations and additions – until the Romans destroyed it in 70 AD. Control traded back and forth between Christians, Persians, Arabs and others for a thousand years. Muslims constructed the Dome of the MISSION MAN: Yehuda Glick, here in 2011, wants Jews to be allowed to pray at the Old City Rock in 691 AD, and Al-Aqsa Mosque, the compound. Below, right: A security guard for the Waqf, the custodians of Muslim sites in Jerusalem. third holiest shrine in Islam, 14 years later. REUTERS/EMIL SALMAN, AMMAR AWAD The Dome of the Rock is built right at the point where the Prophet Mohammad is said to have ascended to heaven. That point also in nationalist, secular supporters and back- God created the world and was the site happens to be atop the site of Judaism’s ing from high-profile politicians. A hun- of the second Jewish temple until 70 AD Second Temple, and encompasses the dred or more Jews can arrive at the mosque (see “Disputed land”). They want the right Foundation Stone, a rock holy to Muslims, some days, in large, organised groups. Last for Jews to pray alongside Muslims. Some Jews and Christians. year Yossi Farenti, then Jerusalem District even want to build a new temple and have When the Christian Crusaders wrested Police Chief, told the Israeli parliament’s crafted sacred gold-and-silver vessels and Jerusalem from Muslim control in 1099, they Internal Affairs committee that the num- hand-stitched priestly vestments ready for turned Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock ber of Jews visiting the site had increased the day it is sanctified. Other supporters are into a palace and stables for the Knights 27 percent in the first half of 2014. “There breeding red heifers, hoping for one with- Templar, according to archaeologists. is indeed a worsening in the past few years out a white blemish that can be sacrificially Saladin recaptured Jerusalem in 1187 and as to what happens at Temple Mount,” he slaughtered at the temple, as described in Muslims have controlled the site ever since, said. “This is a fact. No one disagrees. You the Book of Numbers. whether the Mamluks, the Ottomans or the can see it in the numbers.” Palestinian Muslims and others across Jordanians, who oversee it to this day via a A growing number of rabbis have con- the region fear their control is slipping. trust known as the Islamic Waqf. tradicted the Chief Rabbinate, saying vis- “They want to change the rules,” said its should be encouraged precisely because Hamad, the Waqf guard. the Temple Mount is divine. Jewish visitors CHANGE IN STRATEGY mumble prayers under their breath and walk barefoot on the ancient stones in a Perched on an esplanade at the eastern sign of obeisance. edge of Jerusalem’s Old City – the Mount A range of groups, some of them well of Olives and the Garden of Gethsemane financed by the Jewish diaspora, are cam- behind – there are few patches of land more paigning for open access to Temple Mount, contested than this 35 acres. which Jews believe is the point from where The critical moment in the modern AWAD REUTERS/AMMAR SPECIAL REPORT 3 JERUSALEM TERRITORIAL DISPUTE era was Israel’s capture of the Old City in SIX-DAY WAR: Defence the six-day war of 1967. For Israeli Jews, minister Moshe Dayan control of the Old City tied together poli- (centre) walks with tics, religion and nationhood. Following General Uzi Narkiss the victory, tens of thousands flocked to (left) and Chief of Staff the Western Wall, believed to have been Yitzhak Rabin after a retaining support for the second Jewish Israel captured the Old temple built 2,500 years ago. It was the first City in June 1967 mass Jewish pilgrimage to the site since the REUTERS/GPO/ temple’s destruction. ILAN BRUNER/HANDOUT But days later, with the approval of the prime minister, Defence Minister Moshe Dayan went to see the imams of the Islamic Waqf and handed them back the keys to the mosque. “I said that Israeli troops would be re- moved from the site and stationed outside the compound,” Dayan wrote in his au- tobiography. “The Israeli authorities were responsible for overall security, but we would not interfere in the private affairs of the Muslims responsible for their own sanctuaries. “We had no intention of controlling Muslim holy places or of interfering in their religious life.” Over time, a status quo evolved under which Jews have been allowed to enter and tour the area but forbidden to pray. Israeli police and some military help pro- vide security, but the Waqf administers the compound. saw the move as a provocation. It led to a A SHOOTING There were some early attempts to violent uprising called the Second Intifada, The most visible proponent of the new change that. In the 1980s, a messianic ter- also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which approach is Yehuda Glick, a red-beard- rorist group called the Jewish Underground continued for five years and left about ed, American-born rabbi who set up the plotted to blow up the Dome of the Rock 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis dead. Temple Mount Heritage Foundation in and replace it with a temple. That plan was Access to Al-Aqsa for both Muslims and 2007 and now acts as a spokesman for sev- foiled by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic in- non-Muslims was greatly restricted. eral Temple Mount organisations. telligence agency. In recent years the groups committed A 49-year-old father of eight, Glick has In 1990, another group calling itself the to overturning the status quo have shifted become a rallying figure for the movement, Temple Mount Faithful tried to lay a cor- strategy, becoming more organised and frequently photographed with support- nerstone for a new Jewish temple, provok- gaining donors and influence. ers such as an outspoken politician from ing riots that killed 22 Palestinians. While there are still radical elements, Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, or The Waqf says things really began to and frequent verbal and physical confronta- studying pictures of a possible new temple. shift from September 2000, when Ariel tions with Muslims at Al-Aqsa, the groups In 2013 and again in 2014 he was arrest- Sharon, then Israel’s opposition leader, vis- try to cast the issue as one of religious free- ed by police after confrontations at Al-Aqsa ited Temple Mount with a large delegation dom, arguing that Jews should enjoy the and banned from visiting. He sued and won just before an election. Many Palestinians same prayer rights as Muslims. a court ruling allowing him to return once a SPECIAL REPORT 4 JERUSALEM TERRITORIAL DISPUTE Holy sites in 100 m Jerusalem’s Old City Herod’s Gate 1 Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary St.Stephen’s Jews call the 35-acre compound Temple Damascus Gate Gate MUSLIM Mount because it was the site of their Second QUARTER Temple, which was destroyed by the Romans.